Today there is a need to provide product authentication services to a wide variety of equipment, such as networking equipment. For example, there are certain uses of networking equipment in mission critical networks (e.g., for military, air traffic control, etc.) for which it is important to have rapid feedback for authenticity determination requests. One solution is to have a team of engineers around the world that can respond to requests and perform analysis via photographic evidence.
Aside from the obvious requirement of providing an accurate authenticity determination, it is important to be able to rapidly reply to each inquiry at the volume of authentication requests. This may involve processing authenticity requests by either photographic descriptions of the product, or by having the product physically sent to one of several lab locations for analysis. Products that are physically analyzed are then returned to the requester after authenticity has been determined.